Iran

Tehran, May 14 (AFP/PTI) Iran's President Hassan Rouhani has pledged the Islamic republic is "too great to be intimidated by anyone" in a late night meeting with clerics.

"God willing we will pass this difficult period with glory and our heads held high, and defeat the enemy," Rouhani said late Monday as he met Sunni clerics to mark the holy Muslim month of Ramadan, the official government website dolat.ir said.

He was speaking after four ships, including two Saudi oil tankers, were reportedly attacked off the UAE coast on Sunday, in a sign of mounting regional tensions.

13 May 2019; DW: After the US army sent forces into the Middle East, Iran has said it won't surrender to political and economic pressure. US President Trump said he wants to hear directly from Iran's leaders and asked them to call him.

The commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guard, Major General Hossein Salami, said in a parliament session on Sunday that the United States has started a psychological war in the region, according to a parliamentary spokesman.

Tehran, May 13 (AFP/PTI) Iran on Monday called attacks on ships in the Gulf "alarming", after the UAE and Saudi Arabia said several vessels including oil tankers were damaged in acts of sabotage off the Emirati coast.

"The incidents in the Sea of Oman are alarming and regrettable," Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi said in an English-language statement on the ministry's website, calling for a probe into the attacks and warning of "adventurism" by foreign players to disrupt maritime security.

10 May 2019; MEMO: Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said on Friday Tehran will not negotiate with the United States and denied any US attack was likely, a day after US President Donald Trump urged talks and said he could not rule out a military confrontation, Reuters reported.

11 May 2019; MEMO: A senior Iranian cleric said in a Friday prayers sermon that the United States’ navy fleet could be “destroyed with one missile”, as a US aircraft carrier headed to the Gulf, the semi-official news agency ISNA reported -says Reuters.

The carrier Abraham Lincoln, deployed by President Donald Trump’s administration to the Middle East as a warning to Iran, passed through Egypt’s Suez Canal on Thursday, the Suez Canal Authority said.

TEHRAN, May 10 (Xinhua): The U.S. government of President Donald Trump dare not wage a war on Iran despite its threats, a senior Iranian commander said Friday.

"Negotiations with Americans will not take place, and Americans will not dare take a military action against us," Yadollah Javani, head of the political bureau of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps, told Tasnim News Agency.

Tehran, May 10, IRNA - The Ambassador of Iran to the United Nations, Majid Takht Ravanchi, in response to US president's claim to negotiate with Iran for non-acquisition of nuclear weapons, said that Trump appears to be unaware of Iran's lack of interest in nuclear weapons.

TEHRAN, May 10 (Xinhua): Thousands of people in Iran's capital Tehran on Friday rallied in support of recent Iranian government's decision to suspend the implementation of some of its commitments under the nuclear deal in response to the U.S. withdrawal from the deal last year.

According to local media, similar rallies were held in other Iranian cities after the Friday prayers.

In Tehran, people chanted slogans and held placards in support of the Iranian government's decision.

BEIJING, May 9 (Xinhua): One year after the United States withdrew from the 2015 Iran nuclear accord and took a string of hostile measures against Iran, Tehran responded in kind by announcing Wednesday that it would suspend some promises it made under the tension-defusing deal.

In addition to stepped-up sanctions, Washington has designated Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps as a "foreign terrorist organization," vowed to counter the so-called "Iran threat," and announced the deployment of a U.S. aircraft carrier group and bombers to the region.

TEHRAN, May 8 (Xinhua): Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said Wednesday in letters to five world leaders that Iran will scale back more compliance with a 2015 nuclear agreement in 60 days unless they keep promises with the deal, according to media reports.